The House of Shattered Wings

No. No. But he couldn’t hold on to anything. All his thoughts seemed to be as fractured as the glass in Morningstar’s hands.

Fire in his hands, fire in his veins—the sound of his heart, madly beating against his broken ribs—the strength of water around him, drawn in a protective circle—and he ran on legs that should have been jelly, losing himself in the bowels of the House, letting Emmanuelle’s and Selene’s voices fade to wordless whispers. Away. He had to get away from this room; from Asmodeus, from Morningstar, from whoever was behind this—from the House that had given away its own students, that kept betraying its dependents, over and over again. . . .

Away.

*

MADELEINE, out of breath, with the beginning of a cough in her wasted lungs, cleared her corner of the corridor, and saw—

No.

No.

Asmodeus, in the middle of an old-fashioned drawing room, as elegant and dapper as always—his long-fingered gloves dark with the cloying smell of fresh blood. He held a handkerchief between the tip of his index and his thumb, carefully wiping his horn-rimmed glasses clear of any stain. The animal smell of blood, the sharp, sickening tang of it, rose so strong everything seemed to be coated with it, like an abattoir; or the kitchens, the night Elphon had died. . . .

Blood. Fear. No. Don’t be a fool. It had nothing to do with her, or with Elphon. Nothing. She took a deep, shaking breath; forced herself to look at him. He was speaking, wearily, to Selene—giving the impression of an adult indulging a small child. “I have no idea where he went. I notice you didn’t make much of an effort to follow him, either.”

Selene didn’t flinch. “He’ll turn up.” Beside her was Emmanuelle—the archivist’s face pale—and Isabelle, who looked as though she’d descended all the way into Hell. “We have to find him,” she said. “He’s hurt.”

Who—? Philippe. The blood—the blood was his, not hers, not Elphon’s. . . .

Asmodeus raised an eyebrow, looked at Selene with an eloquent expression. “Do you always raise them this dumb?” he asked. “Such pure and magnificent innocence.” He pinched the temples of his glasses between index and thumb, and put them back on his face. The handkerchief, stained with two bloody fingerprints in a corner, remained in his hands. “Trust me, child,” he said to Isabelle. “If you don’t grow up, others will make you grow up, and it will be a far less pleasant experience.”

Heart beating madly, Madeleine turned to leave the room as quietly as she’d entered it; but Asmodeus’s gaze turned in her direction. “Ah, Madeleine. Do come in.”

Her voice seemed to have deserted her, and so had her will. She should bow and make her excuses, go back to the safety of her laboratory. Instead, she found herself moving farther into the room, as jerkily as a puppet on strings—coming to stand by Isabelle in a futile attempt to protect her, with the monster in the center of the room smiling widely all the while.

“You’ve got your audience,” Selene said. “Are you satisfied?”

Asmodeus’s eyes were hard. “Satisfied? No, if you must know. I would have liked to kill him myself.”

Emmanuelle took in a deep, painful breath. “He wasn’t—”

“You saw him.” Asmodeus’s voice was curt. “You saw what was around him. Will you look me in the eye and tell me that had nothing to do with Samariel? Such angry magic . . .”

Emmanuelle’s face was pale. She lifted her hand: the flesh of the back was raised and red, formed around a perfect circle with a dot in the center. The mark of the corpses. The touch that killed in the time it took to draw breath, like the five informants in Lazarus, like Oris.

No. That wasn’t possible. “You’re still breathing,” Madeleine said, and couldn’t keep the accusation out of her voice. “How can you still—”

“Because she’s a stubborn idiot and didn’t go to the hospital wing when I asked her to,” Selene said. “Emmanuelle—”

Emmanuelle didn’t move. Couldn’t move, Madeleine realized, chilled: too weak to do so. Her instincts kicked in; filling in the void in her mind. “Selene is right. You need to get to Aragon, now. Come on—” She moved to support the weight of the Fallen; and was only half surprised when Emmanuelle let her entire body go slack. She propped her up—she weighed almost nothing, compared to Isabelle—and started to walk toward the door.

“Let me help you,” Isabelle said, and took Emmanuelle’s other shoulder. Isabelle’s eyes rolled upward for a fraction of a second, and the radiance from her skin intensified. “I’ve asked Aragon to meet us halfway.”

Madeleine nodded. Good thinking—she should have had the idea herself, but her mind was frozen, all her thoughts hopelessly scattered in the presence of Asmodeus, running ragged on fears that he would find her, that he would make her pay for leaving Hawthorn, for betraying her loyalties to him. . . .